Protocol Labs launches Protocol Labs Venture Studio (PL VS)

We are pleased to announce the official launch of Protocol Labs Venture Studio (hereinafter referred to as “PL VS”), a program dedicated to helping startups leverage the capabilities of Filecoin, IPFS, libp2p, Ethereum and the PL ecosystem. Other technologies, developing and building breakthrough technologies. These startups will join the Protocol Labs Innovation Network, which will connect potential funding sources, technical expertise and web3 native services to accelerate the development and growth of new startups. The first startups are working on blockchain scalability (IPC: https://ipc.space/), randomness and time-lock encryption (drand: https://drand.love/), blockchain-based Data storage (DeStor: https://destor.com/), data network computing (Lilypad: https://docs.lilypadnetwork.org/), content distribution network (Saturn: https://saturn.tech/), etc. . We welcome builders and collaborators to explore partnerships with PL VS and the startups it will launch to jointly develop breakthrough technologies in computing that will move humanity forward.

Protocol Labs is an innovation network connecting more than 600 technology startups, service providers, investment funds, accelerators, foundations and other organizations developing breakthrough technologies and products at the frontiers of computing: web3, AI, AR, VR, BCI, hardware, etc. Organizations collaborate through networks to solve common problems, share knowledge and resources, and accelerate research and development in a wide range of technology areas.​

Over the years, many startups have started or have joined the Protocol Labs network. For example, CoinList (2017: https://coinlist.co/), Pinata (2018: https://www.pinata.cloud/), Skiff (2020: https://skiff.com/), Cryptosat (2020: https://www.cryptosat.io/), Huddle01 (2020: https://www.huddle01.com/), Privy (2021: https://www.privy.io/), Companies such as Tephra Labs (2021: https://www.tephra.com/) and Number Zero (2022: https://n0.computer/) are starting in this network. StarkWare (https://starkware.co/), Zama (https://www.zama.ai/), ConsenSys (https://consensys.io/), Fleek (https://fleek.co/), Golden (https://golden.com/home), Gensyn (https://www.gensyn.ai/), WeatherXM (https://weatherxm.com/), Anjuna (https://www.anjuna.io /), Element (https://element.io/) and other companies subsequently joined the network. The companies are supported by the Innovation Network through a variety of programs, services and products, including mutual exchanges, potential mentors and advisors, accelerator programs (https://www.softnoise.xyz/apply), expert office hours (https:// www.plnetwork.io/directory/members?officeHoursOnly=true), Investor Demo Day (https://fil.vc/), Web3 New Narrative (https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingWeb3), Service Offering merchants (such as recruitment https://recruiting.plnetwork.io/, mechanism design, activities), a wider venture capital network, etc.

This innovative model has been a huge success and is expanding the scope of projects across the network. One key component we have been missing thus far is the structure to support the productization of new technologies. Typically, these technologies have been established for many years but require a focused environment to develop successful products and services and then turn them into new startups. This includes discovering product-market fit, developing a business plan, building the company, and more. The PL Network already has a number of accelerator programs that support the growth of new startups, and these programs are effective for many types of companies. Based on current experience, however, many startups require a different approach.​

The network has been stepping up its efforts to launch promising products and services based on outstanding projects within the network. In the past year alone, many new startups have been established through the Internet in a form closer to venture studios, including Filecoin-based computing protocols, Lurk Lab (Turing-complete programming language for zero-knowledge proofs: https:/ /lurk-lang.org/) and Expanso (distributed computing platform: https://www.expanso.io/). Learning from the journey of these companies, we are building a new PL Venture Studio that will allow us to support the launch of new startups with this approach.

Key areas: projects based on Filecoin, IPFS, etc.

Filecoin is an incentivized storage layer built on top of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), providing open services for data and data storage tools. Filecoin has developed into the world’s largest distributed storage network, with a total storage capacity of 10 exbibytes (hereinafter referred to as “EiB”) and a storage data volume of more than 1.5 EiB. The Filecoin network forms a distributed cloud platform with large-scale storage and computing hardware, data storage and transmission systems, and large-scale computing. Filecoin is a complex protocol that any team or developer can use as the infrastructure for an application or service.​

The Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), which emerged earlier this year, enables user programmability and smart contracts. Today, Filecoin uniquely blends core blockchain capabilities such as programmable smart contracts with data storage and retrieval capabilities on large-scale distributed cloud networks. Initial applications of FVM include data storage portals, L2 computing networks, content distribution networks, etc. Over the past 3 years, over 250 startups have graduated from accelerators focused on Filecoin and IPFS, raising over $370 million.​

Many teams across the Protocol Labs Innovation Network have been developing new breakthrough technologies that are now opening up new use cases and new potential applications. In addition, areas that have made great progress in recent years are beginning to intersect: blockchain smart contracts, artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), zero knowledge (ZK), fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), Virtual Reality (VR), Metaverse, etc. We see a wealth of opportunities on the horizon and huge potential for new startups.​

Protocol Labs Venture Studio (PL VS)​

PL VS supports new businesses (usually independent companies with their own founding teams and investors) based on Protocol Labs network technologies and projects. PL VS brings together new technology, high-value use cases, an outstanding founding team, market research, product design, customer validation, capital, marketing and a lot of hard work.​

PL VS supports a range of opportunities that build on Filecoin’s functionality as a blockchain and distributed storage network. These projects include blockchain scalability, cloud data storage, data availability network (DAN), content delivery network (CDN) and computing on data network (CoD). Each project is enhancing the core performance and functionality of the Filecoin network, supporting new types of applications, and bringing more use cases and users.

Some of the first projects​

Interstellar Consensus (IPC) productization​

To support global-scale applications in web3, InterPlanetary Consensus (IPC: https://ipc.space/) is building infrastructure. Web3 has limitations in scaling (high transaction costs and low throughput), which together limit the deployment of web2-scale applications and experiences. IPC is an on-demand, horizontal and vertical scaling solution using blockchain recursion trees. Additionally, combining IPC with next-generation FVM, which has been proven to support Filecoin-scale applications, creates a customizable stack for builders to deploy global-scale applications for specific use cases (i.e. social, gaming, and computing) , without developing the full stack.​

New data availability network​

There is a huge opportunity in leveraging the IPC stack (mentioned above) to build specialized subnets focused on facilitating low-cost, verifiable and computable on-chain data. Smart contract, NFT, and dApp developers should be able to build applications that can read, write, and compose larger data sets with lower transaction and storage fees, but this is still cost-prohibitive today. The Data Availability Network will unlock more trusted on-chain data for all blockchain applications.​

Cloud storage platform DeStor​

DeStor (https://destor.com/) is a cloud storage platform that simplifies the process of uploading data to the Filecoin network for large enterprise customers, while reducing the operating costs of Filecoin storage providers. Centralized storage networks are unreliable and expensive. It’s clear that storage users are more inclined to look for alternative solutions that are low-cost, trustworthy, and avoid provider lock-in. The Filecoin network has seen tremendous growth in data volume over the past two years (https://destor.com/en-us/filecoin-network-client-explorer), and DeStor is bringing these capabilities to a wider range of users and new markets.​

Web3 CDN Filecoin Saturn​

Saturn (https://saturn.tech/) is a blockchain-powered content delivery network (CDN) that brings Filecoin’s verifiability and data integrity to scalable data retrieval. Currently, most web3 users rely on web2 CDNs because web3 options are limited and most of them are not very efficient or affordable. Today, Saturn is the world’s largest web3 CDN in terms of capacity, aiming to leverage the power of IPFS and Filecoin to achieve high performance and low-cost retrieval.​

Distributed data computing network​

As the Internet continues to expand, the demand for computing will also grow exponentially; as developer needs change, new computing systems will be needed; as the scale of blockchain expands, more and more computing will occur In and around blockchain applications; as Filecoin data accumulates, users require more and more ways to run programs and applications on their data. Computing on Distributed Data (CoD) networks organize general computing power (pioneered by centralized cloud platforms) by using blockchain mechanisms. Recently, projects like Bacalhau (https://www.bacalhau.org/) have simplified the tools needed to develop CoD networks. Today, new networks (such as Lilypad: https://docs.lilypadnetwork.org/) are forming that are dedicated to leveraging the scale of the Filecoin network to solve specific use cases and application problems. With large-scale computing hardware and data storage, Filecoin is the best L1 home for the CoD network. Any user, from a small startup to a large enterprise, can leverage these networks to access and acquire scalable computing resources for applications such as AI training and inference without the need for expensive data center investments.

Productization of Drand randomness, time locks, etc.

Drand (pronounced DEE-rand: https://github.com/drand) is an open source software powering the Threshold Cryptosystem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_cryptosystem), developed by more than twenty Operated by a league of international organizations (called the “League of Entropy”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Entropy). Drand provides publicly verifiable, unpredictable, and bias-resistant randomness values as well as other key features, such as distributed key generation management, time-lock encryption, etc. These cryptographic infrastructure primitives serve multiple purposes and can be used individually or collaboratively as part of a composite application. The project will apply the capabilities of the drand project to multiple key use cases.​

Work with PL VS​

To help launch teams participating in the Protocol Labs Innovation Network, we are inviting teams and individuals to collaborate with us